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Ducati Design Contest, or, A Bunch of Cool Stuff

Ducati recently sponsored a worldwide design contest which asked designers to submit their vision of Ducati’s heart and vision (one contestant took the heart part literally!). All of the designs were impressive, but I found the coffee maker particularly appropriate, considering that the Ducati Corse race team is famous for its prodigous espresso consumption. The scale pays homage to the race engineer’s obsession with weight. Not to mention some of the bikes, particularly the contest-winning “Flat Red” by Jems Von Brauck and the “Ducati Roadster” by Massimo Zaniboni – I hope Ducati hires these guys! I’ve included Ducati’s press release, and the pictures are below that.

DUCATI ANNOUNCES THE WINNERS OF THE COMPETITION ‘DESIGN YOUR DREAM DUCATI’
Our panel of judges has just announced the winners of Design Your Dream Ducati, the competition launched one year ago to offer all enthusiasts of the marque the chance to submit their own interpretation of the Ducati bike of the future.

Bologna, April 2004 – Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. (NYSE: DMH, Borsa Italiana S.p.A. DMH), the motorcycle manufacturer, is proud to announce the winners of ‘Design Your Dream Ducati’ , the first ever national competition dedicated to the passion, talent and imagination of Ducati fans all over the world.

The jury, made up of Decio Carugati, journalist and design expert, as well as Miguel Sal, head of one of the most important Italian advertising agency, also awarded prizes in the categories listed below with their respective winners:

The finalists hail from a number of different countries and a variety of academic and professional backgrounds; Steve Gummer, for example, is a designer from England, 28 years old, and currently a member of the Blue Marlin team (London); Federico Verardi from Italy, who at age 23 is one of the youngest to take part in the competition, is a student at the University of Reggio Emilia and lives in Bologna; Garry Sammonsis, a thirty-year old New Zealander, is a student of industrial design at Massey University (Auckland); Richard Pfeiffer and Fabian Eilingsfeld, two forty-year olds from Germany with degrees in cybernetic and aerospace engineering.
They are people from very different walks of life united by a common passion for the Ducati marque.

The competition, which was designed to foster, encourage and promote passion, talent and imagination in the world of motorcycle racing, has been an enormous success, with many thousands of designs sent in from all over the world.
The two overall winners, Jems Von Brauck and Steve Gummer, will each receive a Ducati motorcycle as their prize.

The story of Ducati design is the evolution of industrial aesthetics and the experience gained on the circuits all round the world in over sixty years of building motorcycles. In recent times the Ducati design team has been led by three world famous designers: Miguel Galluzzi, Massimo Tamburini and Pierre Terblanche. Over the last decades these designers have created masterpieces of the modern art of industrial design: the Monster, the 916, the MH900e and, more recently, the new 999 and the Multistrada 1000 of Terblanche. These icons of motorcycling are the result of simple yet essential principles that lie at the heart of every Ducati: imagination, technical innovation and passion.

The winning designs will soon be on show in the pages of website www.ducati.com, and there will also be the opportunity to be seen first-hand during the World Ducati Week, the gathering of Ducati enthusiasts from all over the world to be held at the Misano circuit at the end of May, where the designs will be on display throughout the week so that everyone will get the chance to admire them.

Founded in 1926, Ducati builds racing-inspired motorcycles characterized by unique engine features, innovative design, advanced engineering and overall technical excellence. Ducati has won eleven of the last thirteen World Superbike Championship titles and more individual victories than the competition put together. The Company produces motorcycles in five market segments which vary in their technical and design features and intended customers: Superbike, Supersport; Monster, Sport Touring and Multistrada. The Company’s motorcycles are sold in more than 40 countries worldwide, with a primary focus in the Western European and North American markets. For more information about the Company, please visit our web site at http://www.ducati.com.